Surviving & Thriving: A Parent’s Guide to School Transitions

The back-to-school season is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Whether it's the unknowns of starting KG, the big jump  to grade one, or the tumultuous leap into high school, each transition carries its own set of expectations, anxieties, and adjustments.

Together with my insightful guest Amy Yeung, we peel back the layers of these transitions, offering you a fresh perspective to better understand and navigate these changes not just for yourself as a parent, but for your children as well.

Let's break away from the stereotypical  narratives and focus on what really matters — our children's well-being. How can we equip them with the skills to identify good peers? How do we alleviate pressure of transitions with realistic expectations?

Prepare yourself for an episode brimming with practical advice, empathetic discussions, and a fresh perspective on school transitions and friendships. This is not just about surviving the back-to-school season; it's about turning these transitions into opportunities for growth and resilience. Join us for this episode that promises to transform the way you perceive and handle school transitions.

This episode offers a glimpse into the Raising Resilient Children membership community - a resource dedicated to fostering resilience in our children. This conversation with Amy Young is not just about transitions and friendships, but also a wealth of knowledge on raising resilient children. Don’t miss out!

___

Get your quick and actionable tips, blog/podcast updates and curated children's book recommendations by joining Tara's Take the Newsletter HERE

You can also submit questions directly to me at info@taragratto.ca or by heading to our website HERE

------
The music for this podcast is written and produced by Jazlyn B with the guidance of Sabine Ndalamba

Note: This podcast is created for educational purposes only. Any references links, resources or content are not intended as a substitute for medical or professional mental health advice.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:48

Hello and welcome. For this week's episode I'm doing something a little bit different. I'm going to take you inside the Raising Resilient Children membership where I host a special guest expert once a month to chat about all things education. So my guest this week is Amy Young. She is a high school guidance counselor, special education specialist and a teacher for over 20 years. We're going to be chatting about transitions, making friends and all those things related to back to school. All right, hello everybody, it is Tuesday, august 15th. Today is our chat about transitions and friendship and back to school. Amy and I have a podcast on transitioning to high school, so middle and high school. So if you are someone who has a bit of an older child and you're catching this, you might also enjoy that podcast. We did it last year, but this year I really wanted to talk, tackle talking a bit more about transitions, because it's a topic that comes up every year in my work. What does an actual transition look like? And then, what do adults define friendship as, what do kids define friendship as, and I want to have a bit of a conversation about how that changes. So I'll have I'll touch on sort of the early years and Amy will touch on some of the sort of older years, because there's a real change in what adults parents, caring adults feel is important and what kids do and when that sort of happens. So welcome Amy. Thank you for joining me.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Thanks for having me again. I'm not going to lie. I am looking at the calendar. As I said to my son this morning, it is August 15th, which is the middle of August, and he's like, oh my gosh, it's almost time for school, like I know, every year at this time of year it's that like sort of magical time where summer is not quite over. But you're thinking about what is school going to look like, because we're going back to school soon. Yes, and yeah, we have a few more weeks, but like they're going to go by really quickly.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Yeah, we do, but a lot of my American friends actually start tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Oh, okay, so they're back.

Speaker 1: 2:52

So they're back, it's they've been thinking about us for a couple of weeks already. Yeah, although I'm going to say most parents I talk to kind of do the denial strategy, which is like we'll just pretend until last minute as my friend was staying to on Monday. She's like so I kind of forgot about lunches and I think I better put some stuff together, because lunch food and what's in the fridge don't actually go together. Right.

Speaker 2: 3:16

And that sort of reminds me of all. Like any transition, it's always that little scramble at the beginning like, oh my gosh, you know there's a like, just kind of to get used to things. Like even going into the summer was a bit of a transition, a little bit of a scramble to get into a new routine. And I find going back to school is the same thing. So the first, I always look at the first week as a bit of a scramble. To be honest, like my, my kids are in the next level. My son's entering middle school, so that's going to be a whole new experience for him, like this rotary and those things have never experienced before. So I'm thinking about that along with him. He has no idea what to expect, but I do, so I'm already thinking about that transition. And then I'm also thinking about transition for students coming back. You know, to see me starting off the school year in high school. So I'm always thinking about transitions in different ways, as a teacher but also as a parent, because I'm experiencing both. So it's it's it's good to talk about these things, because I find that transitions never work as smoothly as we like them to. They always take us very long, like longer than we like, much longer than we like. But then in the end it works out if we, if we, you know, pick a routine and we go with it and we and we put our, invest our time into it, in the end we adjust so. So I guess I'm no stranger to transitions. I see it all the time, experience all the time. I think we all do. I just maybe I think about these things more than other people do just because of the nature of my work.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yes, yeah, so there's always a lot of, a lot of anxiety around transition times, for sure, and I think one of the things that I've been doing a lot of thinking about this today I have a blog about with little tree, about change and transitions, and I had a call last week with somebody whose child is going from kindergarten to grade one and that's actually quite a common transition Kind of starting kindergarten tends to stress parents out, which makes a lot of sense and sort of they often share their stress with their little people because they're their children, don't necessarily know what to expect yet, so they're not really sure about what's coming, so they don't know what to be anxious or worried or have what it's about. But parents have a big sort of idea of what to be. However, between kindergarten and grade one there's a difference. Parents are like what's the deal? We're in year three here, and the kids are like grade one, it's right. And typically kindergarten teachers will do a lot of like and next year you're going to have, you know, more studying and sitting and sort of, in their efforts to sort of build in that responsibility factor. Some kids get really freaked out, which happened last week to this little person I was talking to. They're like I don't want to go to grade one. So you know parents have a bit of a some anxiety around kindergarten. I find the anxiety is kindergarten, middle school, high school. That's kind of where I see the transition anxiety for parents and then kids. It's it's as you just said. There's one. I see one between kindergarten and grade one and then I see a big one around grade six or seven, depending on your school. Some kids change schools altogether, some kids start rotation and then, of course, high school is a whole another thing, but one of the things I was thinking about earlier today because I was debating whether I would write a blog about this or do a pot cast. I have a couple podcasts already, but I was actually thinking about do we actually put too much emphasis on making transitions perfect and not enough emphasis on the fact that they are just hard?

Speaker 2: 6:49

I personally think so, because I think perhaps it's because, as parents, we are concerned about our kids. We want our kids to have the best experience possible and when things don't go as smoothly as we like, we actually feel like. I know me personally I feel guilty if my kids don't have a smooth transition. I feel like did I do everything? Like was there something more I could have done? And the reality is, after all this time watching people transition and going through transition myself, transitions are just hard, like that's you know. And now with my kids, I say, okay, the first week. Like I actually talked about this with my kids today on a walk and I said, look like the first week of school is going to be tough. The first day is chaotic, like I don't even know what happens. On the first day. They show up and they come home and they look like their brains have been fried because they've gone through so much, just so much information. They're like, okay, I have all these people in my class. I'm a teacher, I got you know. They're all learning the routine and you know the first week. So I think it is just. I think we need to talk more about things transitions being tough, especially the beginning. There's always a learning curve. There's always. You're just learning so much because you're getting a lay of the land, you're trying to figure out what's happening, you're observing the routines and then, once you actually get to practice the routines a few times which probably takes a few weeks then you start to feel like okay, like I know what I'm doing and I feel like maybe we don't talk enough about that, because a lot of times, you know, when I've sent my kids off to school, I want them to come home and tell me they had the best day first day of school, like possible. You know, it was perfect, it was great, made so many friends, like I would love to hear that. But you know, the reality is that the whole season hasn't been perfect and there were times when my kids maybe didn't make a new friend the first day of school or, you know, maybe they felt a little lonely or, you know, there were things, there were bumps in the road, but ultimately they survived Because, as with any transition, it ends right after you adjust. Right, there is an end point, yeah there is an end point, it does end. So I think maybe we as parents shouldn't put so much pressure on ourselves to have to like want our kids to have that perfect transition, because I just don't think it's possible.

Speaker 1: 9:05

Yeah, no transition, no matter how well organized, works out perfectly, like there's never going to be a transition, I think, where everyone's happy and not anxious and things don't get dropped here and there Like it's just yeah for sure, and I think one of the most interesting things about transitions is and what I really reflect, because you know my perspective I'm often thinking about like kids, right, I'm always I'm very like problem solving why do kids do things? What's the reaction kids have? Right, I kind of have that lens, and one of the things that I think a lot about is sometimes we expect kids to do things much faster than adults, and I'm not really sure why. Because they have less experience at it. Transition is a great one, right? We expect that. You just mentioned friendship, and I hear this a lot when I'm helping parents transition their kids into kindergarten or even to the early years of elementary. They're like, really focused Did you make a friend today, did you? And when we step back from just that statement alone, who makes a friend in a day? That's not a thing, right? That's a good question.

Speaker 2: 10:09

But we have some people make acquaintances, yes, but you're right, I don't want to make a friend in a day.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Yeah, and we had this expectation that kids aren't successful if they didn't make a friend in the first week of school, first day of school. But if you really think about friendship as a concept, right, a peer sure, you could meet some peers in the first week, but to actually meet somebody that you might learn their name, for example, may take several weeks to months, because kids aren't like adults. They don't hey, my name is, what's your name? That's not how they do things. But I think even our maybe internal checklist for what successful transitions looks like we need to recheck that too, because I think we say did you make a friend? But would we say that to someone else, an adult? No right, you wouldn't be like did you make a friend this week?

Speaker 2: 10:57

And people are like okay, that's a good point. I've never actually asked you, tara, if you've made a friend.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Like, well, look how long it took for us, right. It's just not this natural evolution. It's the same thing with, like getting used to things, right. We kind of think by the end of the first week of school, regardless of age. So I think what's really important about this conversation is it doesn't matter whether you're four or eight, or 12 or 14, you're not gonna. Or 40. Yeah, or the teachers, yeah. Look at Tara. There's kind of different timelines, but I think one of the general timelines is that nothing happens in a week, right, like true, true transitions, where I try to tell parents like, think of Thanksgiving as your first bar, and if you have young children like JK, you're more aiming for winter break.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Yeah, christmas or winter break, that sounds about right. Yeah, and people go. Really it takes that long. I'm like yep.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Yeah, for everything to truly be smooth, and you know. But again, I think part of what makes things extra challenging is these unrealistic expectations that we put, where we say have you made a friend, did you have fun? That's the other classic question, and I have a blog about this and I have a podcast Did you have fun? Well, would you have fun in a totally new environment with strangers and everything? The answer is probably not really right. So it's almost like, when we think about transitions and we think about school, what is it that we want to? So what are some things that you think would be more I don't want to say beneficial, it's the wrong word but what are things that would be maybe a better check-in for people to think about, reflect on as they go through this tricky transition Tricky transitions.

Speaker 2: 12:58

Well, as we're talking, actually, I'm thinking about how, like, why do we ask our kids if they made a friend? Like, what are we really really wanting to know when we?

Speaker 1: 13:06

ask them that question.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Maybe we're wondering if they felt like they were welcomed in the class, so they have a sense of belonging, could they see themselves being happy and productive in this environment? Maybe that's what we really want to know when we ask them, like did you make a friend, right? So I mean, these are all big questions and you know, it's interesting because I do talk about these kinds of things with parents and students and my own kids, and now that you're making me think about it, I don't actually remember what I've said to them. But what I do is I always I sort of break it down Like the first thing I do in the first week of school is I will talk about things that are tangible, right? Like we're able to find your classes. Mind you, I work in high school, so there's a. I work in a large school, so there's always that question of did you find all your classes? You know, were you able to at least connect with the teacher? You know, meet your teacher, get to know them a bit? Did they get to know you a bit? Did you, you know, figure out where you're going to eat lunch? That's a big question in high school, because you know where do you eat lunch? Where's my locker? Like these are all the things, right, so tangible things, those are the things like I'm the kind of person who, when I'm in a new environment, I like to sort of set up my own I don't know how I would explain it like my area, you know, I like to have my things in a certain way, just so that I feel comfortable navigating, you know, whatever comes my way. So usually that is like a physical thing, like I rearrange things in my office. I think with students it's about, like you know where to go, do you know who your teacher is like? Who is that one? Like? I like to talk about the teacher because they're that one adult that you know they're going to be attached to for a certain period of time. And so to find, help them figure out, who that one caring adult that maybe they can connect with if they need anything Like I think that that for a lot of students is very comforting to know at least there's one person in the building that they can go to, that they've been. You know that's the designated person to help. So with the younger kids, it could be their teacher. With the older kids, like in high school, it could be like here's the guidance office, you can come here anytime asking any questions or you know that sort of thing. So I find, like the first, the first, while I focus on the tangible things and then after that I start to unpack, we might have conversations, like even at home with my kids about you know, have you spoken to anyone in your class? You know what are the topics you've talked about in your class, and just just to get to get to know what their experience is like and I don't try to ask them if they've had fun, maybe I do ask that question sometimes is to see if they're at least enjoying some aspect of it. But I'm not terribly disappointed if my kid says to me oh, you know, actually it wasn't a great class, you know right, but you know that was just the one class. So I focus on the sort of tangible things first and then we can move on to talk about these and more social aspects. But that usually takes like a few weeks, like the first two weeks is really about navigating, like yeah it's trying to figure out the day.

Speaker 1: 16:11

And if you have younger kids, do not be surprised if there are a lot of uneaten lunches, because there is a serious time shift that happens in their trajectory for food that a lot of kids aren't used to. So if you haven't yet, if you're just listening now, you haven't yet started practicing lunches, even if you've been at school for a while. So if you're like, oh, we got this in the, I still recommend a couple weeks before school, do a couple of like packaged lunch just to get back in the groove again of what that looks like. But definitely KG families tend to get very stressed. So one thing I want to just throw out there as a part of like the lunch conversation is just a quick tidbit is make sure you have an afterschool snack ready, because it will not be unusual. Or have lunch like open up the box again that's what I used to do buy waste of food because it's not unusual for KG kids not to eat. They have this noise and there's so much to intake and they're so not used to it.

Speaker 2: 17:11

Different format, another they don't have a whole lot of time to eat. No, they really don't. They spent. Maybe have an hour and they spend half of it playing and then the other half is eating. But then in that half an hour of eating there's that transition to the table and then the cleaning up. So really they have 20 minutes to eat, or less.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Yeah, and then I'll find that was one of my most stressful things as a parent was just processing the whole lunch thing. That was really difficult for me as somebody as a family who's so was used to meals and things like that. That was a big, big change for us. I think another point you made that's super important that also, plus the younger children, is part of what helps children. Transition is seeing their trust responsibility shifted. So you learning your teacher's name and talking about the teacher and sharing your respect or right. Doing that transition helps children see that caring adult as someone they can approach and talk to. It's also really helpful. So if you're looking for some actionable questions, something I've learned is it's helpful to find out if your teacher, if your child's teacher, knows their name and size it properly. That's a really good sort of hey, has they, have you connected? As your teacher called your name. I find that's a great sort of little bit of insight to see how the classroom has been going and just to see how they're connecting with their teacher. That's one way to sort of start, you know, building I have a strategy called report back to me. So if you're looking for a strategy, that's it's three, three questions try something that it would do something hard, try to do something super fun, and the whole goal there is to get to use goals. So if you have a child who's transitioning and having a bit of a hard time, you can use the report back me, report back to me strategy to support you with actually building some of this so that you have three goals. This is especially effective if you have a kid who's like I'm not going to school, I don't like school. School is horrible. It can be. While you need to go learn something new, you need to try something hard and do something super fun. That way, it's not just about fun, but it's also not just about learning. There's like a little bit of each and you add on to that. So that's just like a little bit of a segue on the younger children component, because, as you can tell, it actually doesn't change much. What Amy just shared is actually not much different than what you want young children. You want them to know where their classroom is, where their cubby is, where they eat lunch, how much lunch they eat, and in my kindergarten podcast I talk about like how you can help them by pre-opening some of the packages. Now they gave a whole bunch of tips on that, which was amazing. So those are some of the like pieces. And then I think just like another quick sort of loopback is this idea of friendship, because I think this is a really central theme of school. In the early years, parents have a lot of expectations around building friendships and relationships, and one of the things Amy and I reflected on in our podcast, which we'll tackle a little bit today, is that in high school, parents really shift their thinking, but kids shift the opposite way. So in elementary school a lot of kids tend to be really focused on academics because it's very school driven for their brains and they don't really think of the friendship component except at recess or at lunch. And parents think the opposite. They're like friends, we've got our friends, we've got our plain aides and things like that. And then in high school, parents go academic, the kids go. I don't care about academics, I want friends. I thought it'd be helpful to talk a little bit about at all goals versus like the developmental places that kids actually are. I think that's a good thing to revisit Just as we're heading into the new year thinking about what does a friend mean, what does that look like and when does the goal shift?

Speaker 2: 21:15

So now that we're here, ryan, because we did talk about this in our podcast last week, which is wow, I can't believe it's been a year but here- we are. But we're still having the same conversation Because as teenagers, in that stage of development, their peer groups become really important to them. Not that their parents aren't important to them, but the peer group becomes a little bit more of a priority for them. And what students are interested in they always want to know do I have a friend in the class? Like that's sort of the first question. Sometimes I have a student who's like can you change my class so I can be with a friend, if I can? I mean, I make no promises, it's very full. But yeah, I think that when high schoolers walk into a building they're worried about if they're going to make any. Are they going to meet any new people? Who are they going to have lunch with? It's such a big place for them that I guess they feel like the social aspect is really important because they don't want to be feeling alone or not belong. Like that becomes really important to teenagers. So I would say the shift comes in high school, whereas parents are more worried about OK, what courses is my child going to take? What is the pathway they're going to take to post-secondary, what are the post-secondary options? What are the marks that they get in grade nine going to affect their ability to enter a post-secondary program Like this is what parents are thinking and students not so much. They actually don't so much care about those things. I would say probably Like some of them do. I mean, obviously I'm going to say that they don't think about it. Students do think about it, but where it becomes really sort of a big topic on their minds would probably be around grade 11. When they're 16, there's something that clicks and they go, oh, like I need to actually start planning. Like what's going to happen to me after high school, because now I'm halfway through high school and it's actually happened so quickly. You know it really does Like. I've been through many cycles of students, like in Ontario, like school. High school is four years and you know I've watched students go from grade nine to grade 12 many times and I've seen that pattern. So grade nine and 10, you know there's a lot of their priorities, usually friends, I mean they do school because a lot of them are academically driven. Like they do school because they have to. Like I have met many academically successful students who don't necessarily like school but they know that it's a means to an end. Like they know they have plans for the future. So but a lot of them in the grade the first two years they're sort of exploring who they are, which is what they should be doing actually is taking the time to try different things and figure out where they want to go. And then in the last two years of high school is when they really focus on the academic portion and the marks and so once they have that purpose then they go for like they worry more about the academics, but definitely grade nine not so much. Like I think parents are in that mindset of like where they're going to go after high school, and so our teachers, like you know I'm not going to lie I'm always thinking about what are the pathways for my students. But I also have to remember that you know younger, the juniors in high school, there's a lot of things going on and it's not just the marks that they're worried about, it's also all the social components. And you know, I think we talk a lot about mental health these days, there's a lot of discussion about mental health, but I think we have to acknowledge that in that stage of development, particularly in early high school, that the peers are really important to them. And I think when we discount that, actually it makes it stressful for the kids because, like they're like you know, I'm trying my best to please my parents but at the same time, like I really do want to have a good core group of friends, like I want to have that sense of belonging beyond. You know, like you know, my kids are not there yet, like they're not yet looking for you know, their peer group to be sort of the main social group. They still aren't hanging out with me, which is very cute, but I know it's not going to last forever. But you know like when they enter high school they're starting to build that sense of independence and with that comes, you know, finding their peer group. Yeah, so that's what a lot of high schools are worried about. At the beginning, it's a different mindset than their parents, for sure.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Yeah, and I think it starts to shift in middle school. That's where I see it starting to shift as middle school and one of the things that I think is important to talk about here. I think we actually this is like a, this is a Taurus take. I think we really confuse young children on what friendship means, and I think part of it comes from us unintentionally sort of making that a goal for kids. Like, did you make a friend today? We kind of I was very mindful of this in my preschool Like we kind of force kids to be friends with everyone instead of teaching them what different friends for different purposes, different types of people are different kinds of friends, that not everyone is the best friend or a good friend or a reliable friend, that some are school friends, some are. I think we need to do a little more sort of work in that area because I think as kids move into middle school, they don't really understand what it is they're looking for. I think that's part of what's tricky about that middle high transition is we don't really do a great job of teaching them what a good peer looks like and how those peers might shift right, and I see that in high school as well.

Speaker 2: 27:00

Like there are a lot of students are confused about what is a friend. That's actually a good point and we don't explicitly teach them and I actually do talk about it with my students that I see when they have conflicts with their friendships and, you know, we analyze what kind of friendship is this? Is this somebody you would see beyond the semester? You know, like those are big questions because when I think about my own friendships, I don't I'm not best friends with everyone. I know Like, yeah, you know, I have acquaintances with different people in different parts of my life, right, so I think those are interesting and important conversations to have with kids, that you may meet people, you may meet acquaintances, you may have a really great time with somebody for a short while, but they may not be a long term friend. Like it's yeah, that's how it works out. And then there are other people that are long term friends. And I think those are yeah, I think it's good to talk about those sort of differences, because, yeah, not everybody's going to be your best friend.

Speaker 1: 27:58

Yeah, and I think it's. I think it's tricky for you, for younger children, and I think part of it's we unintentionally put pressure on young children and it's we kind of guides it as kindness, and this is one of the things that I was very mindful of with. Even with the language of kindness. Right, like everyone in here knows what the language of kindness is, it's you know it's not about. It's not about having to love it like everyone. It's about being kind to everyone, regardless of how you feel about them. And I think that's where we kind of make it really murky for young children and understanding, friendship and sort of. You know, do you have a friend yet and have you met anyone? Have you found any play dates? Have you found any? Instead of saying, hey, did you meet someone in your class today? Could you find someone in your class that has something of the same interest as you? Or you know, how did you get along with somebody who has a different interest than you? So sort of looking at those more specific questions, instead of being, did you make a friend today? Maybe did you play a game with someone today? Some people often say to me I get really confused because my children won't share anything and For for young children it comes back to how specific are you with your questions and are you asking too many questions? Because if you ask too many questions you become a detective. And when kids say I don't know, this is really hard to hear. When kids say I don't know, they actually mean it. And when I use this example of adults, I often say well, think about your day. If I was to say how was your day, you're gonna tell me something spectacular that happened. Or you're gonna tell me something epically awful that happened. You're not gonna like you know, hey, this very mundane and boring thing happened. That's not what you share about, right, like you don't connect with a friend and be like hey, I just wanted to tell you that this very mundane thing happened today. That's not why you reach out, right, so kids authentically when things are a bit routine and mundane. That's why they either share really bad stories with you or really epically good ones. It's because the mundane stuff just becomes a part of their daily routines and they're just like yeah, it's part of what we do. So that's one piece. So if they say they don't know, it's actually true. And then the part B is if you want to know more, get really specific. Did you play soccer at recess? What did you do with XYZ? You know that kind of stuff versus what did you do at recess? That's like this huge, broad, difficult question, and the younger your child is, the harder it is to answer that question. So if you're trying to get some feedback on the day, part of figuring that out is that. And then another part of like how do we build this concept of friendship is how are we asking the right kinds of questions to help them understand who appear is who a friend is and what that looks like, and then hopefully, as they transition to middle and high, they have a better sense of who they want to connect with. I Hope you enjoyed today's episode, not just for the jam-packed gems around back to school, but also as a little sneak peek of the kinds of things that happen inside the raising resilient children membership community. If you want more information on that, you can head to the show notes or taro grottoca forward slash RRC membership. Look forward to seeing you there.